THEME

Debates over cognitive externalism are typically framed around a contrast between two positions. Content externalism holds that the contents of our mental states are constitutively dependent on features of the external world, for example, that my belief about water depends on water being H₂O. Vehicle externalism, by contrast, maintains that the physical vehicles realising cognitive processes can extend beyond the biological organism, as when notebooks or technologies function as parts of memory and reasoning. This framing risks obscuring both the diversity of externalising practices and the depth of disagreement they generate. Recent work, particularly on vehicle externalism, has expanded far beyond canonical cases of memory and problem solving to encompass affective regulation, social cognition, narrative identity, and other forms of higher order cognition. Yet the resulting landscape remains conceptually fragmented, with little consensus on what externalisation amounts to or which distinctions matter. This workshop takes these tensions as its starting point. We ask whether the content–vehicle distinction captures the most important dimensions of cognitive externalism, or whether it constrains theorising too narrowly. In particular, we examine when it is relevant to distinguish between uploading cognitive functions into external systems and offloading them onto external supports, and what follows from this distinction. We will consider practical implications for mental health, legal responsibility, therapeutic practice, and cognitive development, as well as possible links between externalisation and the degradation or reorganisation of cognitive capacities at both individual and population levels. Finally, we will assess the role of emerging technologies, especially AI-driven systems, in reshaping human cognitive practices and the distribution of cognitive labour.